This ceramic work is commissioned as a portrait of the buyer’s Dachshund, named Merry. Made of stoneware clay, the teabag combines the features of a Western-styled tooled-leather purse with those of the dog. The work is a combination of hand-built slab construction for the body of the teapot, detailed sculpting for the head, tail and paws, and press mold to impart the faux tooling of the purse and the tail. It’s been fired multiple times in an electric kiln from cone 5 – cone 018. Cold finishes include cubic zirconium crystals added to the collar and crushed turquoise to the buckle clasp to give it the appearance of inlay.